Expectations

The grass takes cues from the wind
and sprints,
streaking like hair (through itself)
as a floundering child back to its mother
who is, say,
the sun looming over,
arms crossed
grinding her gold teeth.

I am watching them,
waiting for a miracle today,
as I waited yesterday,
as I’ll wait tomorrow.
My shoes are untied waiting for the knot.

The grass,
expecting the worms,
extends its fingers (upward)
where the wind takes them
wet and forsaken, back to the light
and heat,
blade by blade
to a chair where she sits and waits,
reading a home-cooking manual,
unaware they have grown up.

*

Matthew Daddona is a senior at Brooklyn College. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anderbo, InDigest, The Scrambler, Mad Swirl, and Assisi. He has received an Academy of American Poets University Prize for his poetry and is currently working on a collaborative poem with scholar T. Clayton Wood. He works at Donadio and Olson, a literary agency in Manhattan.